RBT Exam PrepThe short answer: Applying for the RBT exam takes one BACB portal account, three uploaded documents, and two payments to two different organizations. Set up your own BACB portal account, finish your 40-hour training and competency assessment first, then apply in the portal with the attestation form, training certificate, and completed assessment. Pay the $65 application fee to the BACB. Once the BACB authorizes you, schedule your exam with Pearson VUE and pay the $45 appointment fee.
Check eligibility first
Before you touch the portal, confirm you meet the BACB's baseline eligibility. You must be 18 years of age or older and hold a high school diploma or equivalent. You also need a criminal background check and an abuse registry check that are comparable to an FBI check. Good news on one common worry: the BACB does not require fingerprinting.
Your legal name must exactly match the government-issued ID you will bring to the exam, down to hyphens, suffixes, and middle names. A mismatch between your application and your ID can keep you out of the testing room. Finally, disclose your criminal history truthfully on the application, including traffic tickets over $750. The BACB treats a missing disclosure as a bigger problem than the incident itself.
Set up your BACB portal account
Create your BACB portal account yourself. This account belongs to you personally, and you should never share it, not even with your employer. Your training company or supervisor does not get your login.
Once your account is created, the BACB assigns you a unique BACB ID that follows you through certification and recertification, so keep it handy. Use a personal email address, not your work email, since you need this account to survive job changes. Enter your full legal name exactly as it appears on your government ID, and add the BACB as a safe sender in your email so scheduling and authorization messages do not land in spam.
Finish the 40-hour training
Complete the RBT 40-hour training from an accepted provider before you apply. This is the BACB-approved training covering the RBT Task List, and it is the foundation everything else builds on. Keep your certificate of completion, because it is one of the three documents you will upload with your application.
If you are training with an employer, confirm their training program is an accepted provider. An unaccepted program means redoing the 40 hours, which is the most expensive mistake on this list in terms of time.
Complete the competency assessment
The RBT Initial Competency Assessment must be completed with a Responsible Assessor and based on the current version of the assessment packet. Your assessor observes and documents your skills against the current task list, and the completed assessment is another one of your three application documents.
Timing matters here. The assessment must be completed within 90 days of applying, so do not rush into the portal early. The BACB's own guidance is to apply only after you have met the eligibility requirements, and that includes finishing the assessment. Done early and applied late beats applied early and scrambling.
The attestation form
The third document is the RBT Certification Application Attestation Form. You complete this with an Attesting Certificant, a certificant in good standing who verifies that you have met the eligibility requirements.
This is not a recommendation letter and not something you can sign for yourself. Line up your Attesting Certificant while you are finishing your competency assessment, so the form does not become the bottleneck that stalls your application.
Submit the application in the portal
With your documents ready, log in to your BACB portal account, go to the Applications tab, and click the RBT Certification Application button. You will upload three documents:
- The RBT Certification Application Attestation Form.
- Your 40-hour training certificate of completion.
- Your completed RBT Initial Competency Assessment.
Upload PDF or JPEG files that are legible, with the names on every document matching your portal account exactly. Blurry uploads are one of the most common causes of processing delays. You then pay the $65 application processing fee to the BACB in the portal.
Get authorized, then schedule with Pearson VUE
After the BACB reviews your complete application, it authorizes you to test. You cannot skip this step: scheduling happens only after authorization. Once authorized, you schedule your exam through your Pearson VUE account or its customer service center. The BACB cannot schedule your exam appointment for you.
At scheduling you pay the $45 exam appointment fee to Pearson VUE, a separate payment from the $65 you already paid the BACB. Pearson VUE sends a confirmation email with your test center details, so watch for it and save it. Test centers are available in the US, Australia until January 1, 2027, and Canada except Quebec and Ontario.
Exam day basics
The exam itself is 85 multiple-choice questions, 75 scored and 10 unscored, taken in 90 minutes. You need a scaled score of 400 to pass. You must bring one form of valid government-issued original ID, and the name on that ID must match your application.
Walk through the two-fee summary one more time so nothing surprises you: $65 to the BACB at application, $45 to Pearson VUE at scheduling, for a total of $110 in required fees before retake scenarios. Retakes have their own application and fee cycle, so do the preparation work and pass the first time.
Application readiness checklist
Work through these eight steps in order, from eligibility to test day. Each step matches one section of this walkthrough. Your progress saves on this device.
Sources
- BACB RBT Handbook (2026) - application steps, fees, documents, and scheduling rules.
- BACB RBT Page - certification overview.
- Pearson VUE: BACB Certification Exams - scheduling and test delivery.
Last reviewed: October 8, 2026 against the BACB RBT 3rd edition task list.